Platts proposes launch of Americas Sour Marker

Platts is considering the launch of a new sour crude assessment in the US to capture the value of sour crude oil in the US Gulf of Mexico, the main hub for refining, production, importing and handling of crude oil in the United States.

The assessment is spurred by the apparent ongoing inability of the West Texas Intermediate reference, particularly at Cushing, Oklahoma, to fully represent US Gulf Coast crude economics.

The launch of this new assessment would come as early as March 16, 2009.

The US Gulf Coast, comprising Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, together have a total refining capacity of 6.3 million b/d (barrels/day) or about 42% of the country's total refining capacity. The new assessment, which would be named Americas Sour Marker (ASM), would reflect four US Gulf Coast sour pipeline crudes: Mars, Poseidon, Southern Green Canyon, and Thunder Horse.

The underlying methodology for ASM would follow the Platts Brent-Forties-Oseberg-Ekofisk (BFOE) assessment model in the North Sea, with the ASM assessment reflecting the most competitively priced grade of the four sour crudes.

Platts would publish ASM assessments for the first three months. The rollover for ASM would coincide with the rollover of the existing sour crude pipeline assessments and would take place on the first business day after the 25th of each calendar month. On March 16, Platts would publish ASM assessments for April, May and June. On March 26, ASM assessments would reflect May, June and July.

ASM would be published on Platts Global Alert page 171, in Platts Crude Oil Marketwire, in Platts North American Crude Wire, in Platts Oilgram Price Report, and in Platts Dispatch.

Platts is seeking industry comment on this proposal through March 9.

Please direct your comments, questions and inquiries to Jorge Montepeque, +44 207-176-6136, Jorge_montepeque@platts.com, Esa Ramasamy, +1 713-658-3292, Esa_Ramasamy@platts.com and Sheela Tobben, +1 212-904-4105, sheela_tobben@platts.com, with a cc to pricegroup@platts.com

For additional information on ASM, please view the following link: http://www.platts.com/Oil/Resources/Market%20Issues/wtipricing.pdf?S=n